Ka as shomin-geki: Problematizing videogame studies William Huber 34 Rausch Street 401 San Francisco, CA 94103 USA +1 415 861 5863 [email protected] ABSTRACT The paper addresses limitations of strictly interactive theories of videogame genre, proposes a supplementary, historicist inter-media alternative, and interprets the videogame Ka as a ludic worked based in the shomin-geki tradition of Japanese cinema. Keywords Japanese cultural history, videogame genre theory, shomin-geki, domesticity, intertextuality Rather than looking at videogames in general, this paper examines one game in particular as a cultural artifact: Ka, produced in Japan in 2001, and later released in the US and Europe as Mister Mosquito. By bringing a historicist sensibility to the study of individual games in the aftermath of the initial ludology/narratology formalist discussions, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a way to access videogames as texts in ways that recognize their inherent, media-specific structure as videogames, yet also explore their inevitable intertextualities. To begin with, I look at some general aspects of genre theory as they affect the study of games. I then turn to the game itself, breaking out the structure in a table of interactive and narrative events. An explanation of the shomin-geki comedy drama follows, with attention to how the texts of that genre react to historical changes in the discursive field it tracks, ultimately to include Ka in its concern with the ongoing construction of domesticity in Japan. By tracking genre-formation to historical anxieties within cultural practice, and seeing game-texts as participants in intertextual, thematic genres, we can better understand how they generate discursive positions within gameplay. Videogames, genre, and intertextuality Most discussions of game-texts begin with only minimal skepticism of the categories of genre that have evolved from popular literature. Wolf [16], making a good attempt to catalog the extant interactive logics of genre, suggests: While the ideas of iconography and theme may be appropriate tools for analyzing Hollywood films as well as many videogames, another area, interactivity, is an essential part of every game's structure and a more appropriate way of examining and defining video game genres.1 I contend that much a game's power, both a cultural artifact and as a medium for pleasure, is incomprehensible unless understood thematically. The purpose of looking at genre in this context is not part of a project of taxonomy, but rather to discuss how the game as a text generates meaning in reception/interaction, to find a lineage in its tropes and so ground it in the broader field of cultural practice from which it emerges. The semantic/syntactic approach used by Altman[1] is meant to account for an unfolding, historicized account of film genre development, and make some sense of the failures of both purely thematic or structural approaches to account for intuitive senses of genre membership (specifically, questions such as the “Pennsylvania western,” as well as the relationship between Elvis Presley films and the musical.) A purely syntactic approach to genre would categorize Star Wars as a western (and Altman notes that some critics have done just that.) In fact, he posits a dual-origin theory of genre, in which either element may be a stable or dynamic element of genre-construction. A more thematic approach towards genre may be more productive to the interpretive study of videogames. Interactive (syntactic) genres are less stable over time than thematic genres: the epoch when a videogame title could effectively be constrained to a single mode of interaction has passed. Partially a product of market expectations and partially due to technological and industrial development, interactive game syntax in terms of task-structure changes more dynamically than the cinematographic conventions of film. (At a finer level of analysis, perhaps some elements of game syntax are more stable – the mapping of the cursor or avatar onto the input, for example. However, genre formation does not operate at this level of analysis.) Many recent games remediate other game-styles within them, as “minigames” (as in the Final Fantasy series) or as component tasks (as within Grand Theft Auto 3, where players can essentially play driving simulations within the context of a larger adventure game.) In comparison, thematic genres are more stable over time, to the extent that they can constitute a history that may last over generations. Often, a single game title is experienced as a suite of interactive mini-games, challenges, simulators, and narrative sequences. As games themselves are constituted by other games, the specific interactive structure diminishes as a determinate element of genre. The popular game press betrays a certain reluctance to constrain itself to the interactive aspect of game genre, at times appealing to aesthetic or semantic criteria. For example, a widespread distinction exists between 2-dimensional or cel-shaded games, and 3-dimensional games, even within the same interactive 1Interestingly enough, Wolf draws a comparison with dance genres, noting that the fox-trot, the waltz and so on “are defined by how the dancers move rather than by how they look.” However, as observed by Savigliano[14], that claim is questionable – the reception of dance forms and their taxonomy has always included elements of class position, racial and national identity, and other thematic and contextual information, and the consolidation of a dance tradition into a structured dance form is an historical process by no means isolated from other issues; nor are those forms stable. genre: in fighting games, a distinction made between games such as Guilty Gear X on one hand, and Tekken 4 or Bushido Blade 2 on the other. Though the interactive regimen is almost identical in 2D and 3D fighters, the aesthetic element alone is considered a basis for genre distinction. In practice, the game audience builds genre from interactive/syntactical, thematic/semantic, visual aesthetic, and technological/platform considerations. Thematic genres are inter-textual, and it is my claim that they are meaningful by their origins in the historical anxieties and cultural discourses which background the practice of their production. For example, games such as Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Clock Tower 3 participate in a survival horror genre by which they both remediate and extend the cinematic tradition. In interactive terms they vary somewhat, with Clock Tower 3 having elements of an adventure/stealth game and Resident Evil those of a first-person shooter. Inter- textual junctions exist between the martial arts film genre and fighting games, between televised sports and sport simulations, between first-person war-games and war movies. The Structure of Ka The game Ka – released in the US under the name Mister Mosquito – was developed for the Sony Playstation 2 by Zoom Games, a relatively independent game production house in Japan, and distributed in Japan by SCEI. It was then (un)localized for the US and European markets by Fresh Games, a division of Eidos Interactive that specializes in “quirky Japanese games,” in marketing Japanese eccentricity and turning the unsaleability of the products into a premise for marketing.2 The title enjoyed a certain amount of critical acclaim in the US for its novel approach, (and some criticisms for a certain awkwardness with the interface) but was generally treated as a niche title. In Japan, the title was considerably more successful. A sequel, Ka 2, was released in Japan in the summer of 2003 and is also being distributed by SCEI – it was marketed in pharmacies with a free can of mosquito repellent. The game is about a mosquito's summer as an intruder in the home of the lower-middle class Yamada family. The mosquito must drink enough blood to survive the summer, without being swatted or poisoned. He3 eavesdrops on the conversations of the family. Though predatory, he shows a genuine affection for his hosts. He (and, of course, the player) is a voyeur as well as a parasite, gazing at and tracking the moving bodies of the family members with a playful eros. His only sounds are groans of pleasure and grunts of surprise. The game is structured into 12 stages, each preceded by a stylized cinematic scene depicting a family conference: only the top halves of their heads are shown in these round-table discussions4, a ground-eye view. The conversations track the family's increasing stress and annoyance, first with each other and then with the intruder. After the conference, the game cuts to 2Exportability and “Japaneseness” with regards to videogames have not been addressed in videogame culture literature. See Iwabuchi [8] on mukokuseki (without-nationality) and cultural exports. 3The game's mosquito is depicted as male, though in actuality it is only the female mosquito that drinks blood. 4The conferences are danran, a “tradition” of Japanese families described below. another interior scene, with the stage target in one of the rooms of the Yamada household. After this stage-establishing shot, the game play begins. The player navigates the flight of the mosquito using the Playstation 2's analog joystick controllers, and identifies targets on the bodies of the different Yamada family members. The “shoulder buttons, L1 and L2, control reverse and forward flight speed. The O button will land the mosquito at the penetration site. The R3 button binds to the penetration of the host's skin; the right joystick then needs to be rotated at a variable pace to ensure that the host doesn't notice the mosquito. The player must attend to a blood-pressure/heart-beat monitor: if the gauge enters red level, the host will swat the mosquito, ending the stage (and forcing a reload, at the beginning of the family conference.) At times, careless navigation into the field of vision of the host will trigger a battle-event.